Revisionary Tactics
by KSKSoldat
Summary: Dan, a Blackwater PMC is thrust into a world of the dead and is forced to make descisions that will make or break his missions. Read and Review!
1. Raining Blood

Ladies and Gentlemen:

Ladies and Gentlemen:

_Trapped in purgatory  
a lifeless object, alive  
Awaiting reprisal  
Death will be their acquisition_

The beating of the rotor blades filled my ears. The smell of smoke and fire filled my nostrils and lungs.

"One minute till landing" came the call over the intercom in my headset. I raised one finger to the 10 other men in the cabin of the UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter.

I thought back onto the past few months, and how fucked everything had become. How the world went to shit in less than 3 weeks, and mostly about how a man like me could be working for free.

My name is Dan. That's all you need to know other than my call sign, Harvest of Sorrow, or just Sorrow. I'm not a soldier, or a sailor, or a marine. I'm a merc. A soldier of fortune if you will. I was dressed much differently than the 10 other men in the helicopter. In fact, everyone was dressed a little differently for this little search and rescue mission. I for one was dressed in Multicam, with a full kit. Kneepro kneepads, Multicam CIRAS vest, hell, even some parts of my weapon were Multicam. I loved my weapon, a custom made Tactical Side Folding stock M68 with a body that I got custom made before the Fall in commemoration of my unit, Delta Force.

Everyone else was dressed in either black SWAT uniforms in the case of two of them, and the rest were wearing just civilian clothes, from jeans to business slacks, with tactical vests or chest harnesses. They all had M4's similar to mine, although they did not shoot the 6.8 millimeter SPC round. It was kind of sad how the only people the military had left to spare for SAR missions were civilians and a few former cops.

_The sky is turning red  
Return to power draws near  
fall into me, the skies crimson tears  
abolish the rules made of stone_

I looked out the side of the helicopter and saw them below, thousands of them, the Plagued some people called them. I just called them zombies. No one wanted to believe that though. I couldn't change what they believed just because I wanted to. As we flew low and fast towards the distress beacon I could feel the helicopter slow down to a crawl, eventually slow enough that we could see the ruins below us. What used to be Columbus, Georgia was now nothing but rubble and fire. The US Army at Fort Benning nearby constantly shelled and bombed the city in order to contain the localized infection, but it only worked insofar as burying thousands of the infected and trapping even more people in the city.

_Pierced from below, souls of my treacherous past  
Betrayed by many, now ornaments dripping above_

__As the helicopter slowed down and flared, I leaned forward slightly and motioned for the fastropes to be dumped out of the sides of the helicopter. The SWAT guys went down first, and as soon as they hit the ground they set up 360 degree security at the corners of the courtyard we had been dropped into. I went next and took a quick look around during my 3 second fastrope decent. I saw nothing but a red sky, signaling rain, and thought about how we would get picked up along with whatever survivors we found before darkness fell and the infected started to swarm our final position.

I ran forward towards the northwest corner of the courtyard and posted up. Straining my eyes and ears for any sign the infected were on their way towards us. Intelligence on the area was sketchy at best, and not even good at worst. I had no idea where the infected were in relation to my current position, nor even where I was. All I knew was that about a quarter mile west of where I was now, there was a distress beacon going off, and it had just come up.

The other eight civilians all followed suit and quickly we had a perimeter established, with fire lanes and the works. This place, a small courtyard in the western edge of the town would serve as our rally point in case shit went FUBAR and where we could go for emergency pickup in the event everything went to shit.

I hoped it wouldn't.

_Awaiting the hour of reprisal  
your time slips away_

"Hey, Dan…" came a voice from behind me, I quickly checked and saw one of the SWAT guys waving me over to him. I whistled sharply at one of the four civilians at the southwest corner of the courtyard to bring a buddy with him and watch my point. As he and his friend, both guys in business slacks who also happened to look a lot older than they should, ran over to where I was, I jogged at a crouch to the SWAT trooper, a guy whose nametape said, "Johansen" on it.

"What's the deal Johansen?" I asked as I got over to him. He simply pointed off into the distance to an especially tall and dark pillar of smoke. Not buildings burning, but tires or something with rubber in it.

"It's in the direction we have to head man. That may be them." I narrowed my eyes and studied the pillar of smoke for a few seconds, trying to see Morse code or something in it. I nodded once and said,

"You know this area at all?" Johansen shook his head and gestured to the Northeast corner of the courtyard, where there were four scared looking guys with guns facing outwards.

"Those four are all from this area, I would ask them." I patted his shoulder and he went back to watching his sector as I crouch-ran towards the small group. As I got closer they all stared at me and weren't watching their sectors. I made a hand gesture similar to a salute that meant 'Keep Watching that way,' and only one of them understood and went back to watching his corner. As I got closer I said,

"When I make that hand signal, you watch the direction I'm looking. Got it?" The nearest guy, some mechanic who looked to be in his mid-30s, nodded and went back to watching his part of the corner as well,

"Do you know this area at all?" I asked the last man who was still staring at me. He was about 27, and I think he was an accountant or something for a bank. I wasn't sure, nor did I care at that point. He nodded though and asked me,

"I've lived in Columbus all my life, why?" I gestured towards the column of smoke and said,

"See that column of really dark smoke about a quarter a mile away?" He nodded and I continued, "What's over there?" A look of thought crossed his face for a moment, and he finally said,

"I'm pretty sure that's the stadium over there."

"What's the fastest way there? We don't have much time before nightfall and I don't want to be stuck out here in the dark." I said to the kid.

"We would have to jump on the freeway to get there fast. It goes right next to it and I think there's a ramp that leads down into a freight parking lot." The kid replied.

"How long is that route on foot?" I asked him again.

"Well, the freeway is about a 2 minute walk that way," the kid pointed down a path that I saw headed into a parking lot and what was presumably a rest station, "Then from there it's about a quarter mile, so I would say 15 minutes maximum."

I put my hand up under the sun and counted the number of fingers between it and the horizon. About 3 fingers, so an hour and a half before the sun went down over the highest point under it from where we were.

It sounded easy; 15 minutes to get there, 20 minutes to check it out, 15 minutes to a half hour to get back, depending on how many survivors, if any, we found. Hell we may even be able to get the chopper into the stadium directly, saving a lot of time.

_Raining blood  
from a lacerated sky  
bleeding its horror  
creating my structure  
now I shall reign in blood!_

__I gathered up the guys, and made a tight perimeter. I briefed everyone on the situation and course of action. Hit the freeway, move as quickly as possible to the stadium, check it out and see what is in there, the await pickup either at the stadium or at the, 'Alamo,' as we had now decided to call the courtyard. I hopped onto the radio net and called in to the helicopter orbiting around the area,

"Raven Six, this is Sorrow. We are Irene. I say again, we are Irene."


	2. The Four Horsemen

By the last breath of the fourth winds blow

_By the last breath of the fourth winds blow  
Better raise your ears  
The sound of hooves knocks at your door  
Lock up your wife and children now  
It's time to wield the blade  
For now you have got some company_

As we walked out towards the path I took point. With our weapons at the low ready we all filed towards the on ramp of the freeway, about 20 feet apart, both so we couldn't get ambushed and killed off all at once by a small group of infected and so we couldn't get raked by machinegun fire if anyone was stupid enough to shoot at us. It had been known to happen.

A cool breeze hit me in the face from the direction of the freeway and I could smell it; decay. Rotting flesh was always a bad sign when looking for routes of advance, but we really had no choice. It was either move through a compacted suburban area, potentially full of infected. Or we could hit a freeway full of junked cars. The way I saw it, we were fucked either way.

_The Horsemen are drawing nearer  
On the leather steeds they ride  
They have come to take your life  
On through the dead of night  
With the four Horsemen ride  
or choose your fate and die_

We passed through the rest area and straight onto the on ramp of the freeway. The rest area was standard, nothing special except for a few cars that had been abandoned. As we walked up the on ramp, I heard a blood curdling screech come from behind us and I whipped around just in time to see a half a infected crawling from the window of one of the abandoned cars. One of the older civilians dropped to a knee and fired,"

"BLAATBLAATBLAAT" his weapons roared out 3 shots, with only one hitting its mark in the infected persons head, blowing it into two neat pieces. The body just slumped down halfway out the window, various kinds of goo dripping from what remained of its skull.

"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?" I roared out towards the man who fired, "YOU WILL KEEP YOUR WEAPON ON SEMI AND ONLY FIRE WHEN YOU HAVE A CLEAN SHOT!" The man just looked at me dumbly and I saw his thumb flick, presumably to put the weapon back on semi.

I also heard a few other clicks, signaling that almost everyone in the group but me had their weapons on something other than semi. I shook my head and continued on the on ramp, straining past the sound of footfalls behind me for any sound that the infected were nearby.

So far, so good; one infected down roughly 100,000 in the area to go. I only had about 390 rounds.

This could turn out badly.

_You have been dying since the day  
You were born  
You know it has all been planned  
The quartet of deliverance rides  
A sinner once a sinner twice  
No need for confession now  
Cause now you have got the fight of your life_

I came up the on ramp first and swore at the sight I saw. A veritable maze of burnt out cars and various other vehicles littered the freeway making it seem like a losing proposition to even try to make it through. If even an eighth of the vehicles littering the freeway had infected still seat belted into them we would be outnumbered an easy five to one.

"Shit….the guy who's supposed to guide us, get up here to me!" I said to the people behind me. I heard rapid footfalls and saw the kids face out of the corner of my eye and I said to him,

"So where's this stadium?"

The kid pointed off into the distance, and I could vaguely make it out over the next hump of the freeway. Assuredly though, the freeway went right by the damn thing, and it was in fact a stadium. A rather large stadium by the looks of it.

"That's the stadium there. It's huge man. They held the Super bowl there last year and still have seats left over." The kid was right. Last years Super bowl had well over 10,000 attendees not including the teams and their people. The thing was massive on a scale unlike anything I had ever seen. I had missed last years Super bowl because I was in Iraq at the time doing some contract work for Blackwater USA….who coincidentally is still my employer in a sense.

"What about all this shit? How far off is the stadium?" I asked the kid once again,

"It's closer than I thought. Only just over the hump and about 400 or so yards down the freeway" I nodded and patted his shoulder. Then got up and started moving again with my tail following me like little ducks. No dispersion, no nothing; just a solid line of scared and armed people about to move through a potential deathtrap.

A moving fucking buffet line.

_The Horsemen are drawing nearer  
On the leather steeds they ride  
They have come to take your life  
On through the dead of night  
With the four Horsemen ride  
or choose your fate and die_

I kept walking until I got to the first jumble of cars; I dropped to a knee and had the men form up in a wedge formation, 5 on each side of me making a shallow v shape going from one side of the freeway to the other. The most secure formation I could think of in terms of separation. In these times during a combat mission where a high likelihood of contact was present, dispersion was key to getting at least one man out alive. No one could understand that 4 well trained and well armed troopers could hold off a horde of zombies indefinitely if they had ammo and good fortifications.

People kept treating this threat as a human thing, something that could be beaten simply by shooting it enough. This simply was not true. You could pump round after round into an infected chest, and unless you scored a spinal cord hit and caused it to become quadriplegic, there was no way you could neutralize the threat with just center mass shots. It had to be a clean headshot or all you would get is wasted ammo, which in this day and age was a bad thing to do.

I had to make a decision as to how to approach this death maze. I could try to make a path with Raven Six's miniguns, but that would eat up ammo I might need later. I simply knelt there for a moment and looked back at the horizon. Roughly an hour and fifteen minutes till sundown. If we slugged through it without help, we could be in this maze for an hour of more, clearing every car one by one to make sure we weren't going to get eaten when out backs were turned.

I sighed and bit the bullet. We had to clear the path or at least try to.

"Raven Six, this is Sorrow, we have a request to make." I spoke into my headset. Nothing but crackling static for a moment, then the voice of Raven Six's pilot, Erich Roehmer came up on the net,

"Sorrow, this is Raven Six, I'm listening" he sounded exhausted. Which made sense; the man had been flying for the 160th SOAR for over 10 years, and his Blackhawk had flown well over 1000 hours since the Fall began.

"I need you guys to hit the freeway heading towards the stadium and clear a path through the cars as best you can with your miniguns and rockets if they won't demolish the freeway."

A few moments passed by and I heard a helicopter coming in from behind us, to our west. It must have been the helo, because as soon as it got within roughly a half mile of us I heard the stitching of Minigun fire and saw rockets flying. They hit the left side of the freeway, blowing cars out of the way and breaking the retaining walls to all hell, but not even coming close to hitting us.

I looked to the left to make sure everyone was still with us, and saw two of the guys on the far left with their faces down on the concrete, looking like a fifties era Nuclear explosion drill. I chuckled slightly and walked over to the two men and crouched down between them, about 10 feet from me to either one of the guys.

"Raise your heads guys," they did so, "We now have a clear path to the stadium. Let's move! Double Columns with me in front and in between the two columns!"

They formed up quickly which showed me they were learning. As soon as the formation was moving, Raven Six buzzed overhead and I got a radio transmission,

"I've got to head back to base and refuel, rearm. Be back in five. Raven Six out."

I grimaced at this. No air support, no recon, no extraction for five minutes, maybe longer.

"Fuck." I said aloud. This earned me a few 'Huh?' from in the ranks, but I just shook my head and continued forward on the freeway, 100 yards till the hump was over, and then another 400 yards to the Stadium off ramp for trucks.

I made sure to keep well clear of the pile of cars to my right.

_Time  
has taken its toll on you  
The lines that crack your face  
Famine  
Your body it has torn through  
Withered in every place  
Pestilence  
For what you have had to endure  
And what you have put others through  
Death  
Deliverance for you for sure  
There is nothing you can do_

We kept walking, and I looked over the side of the freeway into the city. All I saw was hell. Even the sky was red. There were pools of blood on the street below us. There were even a few bodies of people who had jumped off the freeway in a vain attempt to get away from the infected. It had been only two weeks since Columbus fell, and already the bodies were desiccated and torn by animals. Buildings that hadn't been shattered by artillery and air bombardment were boarded up with various signs painted on the sides, most of which said

"HELP US" in big, bold red letters.

I almost felt bad for the poor bastards that had most assuredly died of dehydration or infection.

Nothing but a hell…and to think, this had all been a pristine, clean, well fed and run city two weeks before.

May Odin help us.

_So gather round young warriors now  
and saddle up your steeds  
Killing scores with demon swords  
Now is the death of doers of wrong  
Swing the judgment hammer down  
Safely inside armor blood guts and sweat_

As we kept walking, all I could hear was the sound of wind blowing towards us from the stadium, and I could smell the acrid chemicals in tires. There must have been a lot of them burning at once because the smell was strong and the smoke column was a lot bigger than I had originally thought. As the sound of soft footfalls behind me lulled me into a false sense of security, I heard it;

The scream of an infected.

My mind went into overdrive and I dropped to a knee and started scanning in front for anything, any movement and it would stop. My EOTech 552 REVf kicked on when I flicked my weapon to semi, and the red target reticule swam into focus.

Another scream, this time it sounded like a pack of them, moving fast towards us, but I had no idea where from because of all the cars and concrete directing the sound from all directions.

"Raj Sighn! Raj Sighn!" came the call from one of the civilians who I didn't know. At first I was surprised he knew what that meant, then I just followed suit and got into the square formation with my back turned inwards. My sector of fire was still down the freeway towards the Stadium, and then I heard it again, another screech of the infected.

"Keep your weapons on semi men; take shots only when they come within 100 meters!" I yelled out.

"Roger!" Came the cry in unison from the other 10 men. I suddenly felt a surge of pride that these guys could be professional under such duress.

Then they came. At least 25, if not more from where we had just came. I had no idea where they had come from, but they were literally sprinting at us with everything their decaying and mutilated bodies could. I heard the first shot and whipped around to see one of the infected drop motionless. Part of its head gone.

"Good shot trooper!" I cried as I raised my rifle and placed the dot on one of the infected heads, 'BLAM' my shot roared out and I had switched to the next one before the first one had dropped. Snap shooting and CQB were my specialties and strengths when I was part of Delta, and had played a huge part in my hiring at Blackwater.

More shots rang out and I saw rounds hitting into the crowd, impacting the chests and necks of infected,

"Aim higher! Headshots only men!" I roared out over the noise of the infected and gunfire. It only took one time to yell that and infected bodies started dropping, heads torn in half or completely gone.

"More tangos from the rear Dan!" I heard yelled from next to me, I felt the heat of a gun firing and felt a shell hit my leg. I proceeded to whip around to see another 10 or so infected rushing us from the rear along the cleared path.

My mind went into automatic and my training kicked in. I was snapping off shots every second or so, each time scoring a kill on one of the infected. 28 seconds later I had emptied my magazine and yelled,

"LOADING!"

I heard a scream to my right and looked; an infected had worked his way to the top of a SUV and was preparing to leap down on us. I drew my Mk23 and snapped two shots off with it one handed, the recoil jerked my hand hard and the rounds impacted dead in the chest of the infected. Unphased he leapt down onto me and was trying to get at my neck. I rammed my pistol into its mouth just as it landed on me and pulled the trigger, taking the things head off.

As I pushed the body off me heard another cry of "LOADING!" come from behind me. I reloaded my rifle and tore the charging handle back, whipping around again as I did so. I started engaging targets left and right, dropping each of them with one or two rounds to the head. These things were starting to get within 25 meters of us, a no go zone.

That showed when I heard a spurt of burst fire coming from one of the SWAT guys. His shots were missing badly, and I could tell he was panicking. I patted him on the shoulder hard and held up one finger to signify I wanted him to be shooting semi only. He returned the gesture, but not with the same finger. I frowned at him and drew an HEI (High Explosive Incendiary) grenade from the grenade pouch attached to my vest.

I pulled the pin and let fly, watching the small cylinder disappear into the crowd.

"KABOOOOM" the explosion rocked the bridge and sent body parts and flaming debris flying in all directions, effectively clearing our path of retreat.

I turned back to the way we needed to go and watched as the last of the infected in that sector dropped, a bullet clean through it's head.

"Sweet. No time to reload men; just get up because we have got to move as quickly as possible to the stadium." I said this when I saw the men reloading their weapons and starting to relax a little.

"Also remember men, its single shot only unless I say go loud. Anyone who wastes ammo is zombie food, and that's a promise" With that, I took off down the freeway at a good speed.

"If you HAVE to reload, do it while you're moving!"

_The Horsemen are drawing nearer  
On the leather steeds they ride  
They have come to take your life  
On through the dead of night  
With the four Horsemen ride  
or choose your fate and die_

"Raven Six, this is Sorrow." I said into my headset while I ran.

"Sorrow, this is Raven Six, go ahead" came the reply.

"I need you to inspect the Stadium area and see if there is ANY way we can get exfiltrated from that place. Either in a parking lot or in the stadium itself, over." I said breathlessly into the mic.

"Roger that Sorrow, I'm on it. Raven Six out."

I just kept running, not even listening for infected, not even caring about if there were survivors anymore. We had just been engaged by over 40 infected in less than five minutes.

This was looking to be bad. I only hoped those civilians and SWAT guys held out.

I've never hoped for anything before in my life.


	3. Welcome to New Haven

I see my reflection in the window,

_I see my reflection in the window, _

_It looks so different, so different from what you see._

_Projecting judgment on the world,_

_This house is clean baby, this house is clean._

I could only get one thought in my head, and that thought was,

"Get to the stadium, check out what's burning, and get the fuck out,"

I can honestly say I didn't want to die. There was no reason to.

As I ran as fast as I would let myself, I realized that there would never be a reason to die.

Mercenaries don't die; they just go to hell to regroup.

When I finally hit the off ramp to the stadium, I stopped and waited for my comrades to catch up. I was breathless from the nearly quarter mile run in full combat gear, and decided to have a quick smoke before the others caught up with me. I pulled a pack of Camels from my admin pouch and a Zippo from my pocket. Flicking the Zippo open I lit the cigarette and took a long drag, feeling the smoke fill me completely.

"You know those things will kill you man," said one of the SWAT troopers who had just stopped next to me. He sounded breathless and winded; a bad sign if I ever had seen one.

"Either that or the infected." I retorted simply while exhaling the acrid fumes of my dirty little pleasure.

I took in the scene before me; the freight parking lot was completely clear of cars, bodies, anything that might cause issues. Eerie as how there was supposed to be a game going on when the virus hit hardcore and spread. As far as I knew the freight trucks were in the main garage with potential survivors or infected inside the containers. That scared the shit out of me and I felt it.

Other than that, it was a normal stadium. Albeit on a massive scale. The building must have been 12 or 13 stories high, and was simply massive on ground level. There was no way we could clear the entire building before nightfall and the rest of the infected, however many there were, caught up with us.

As I scanned the top of the stadium for some way to either climb up from the outside or any kind of snipers, I saw a glint, ever so faint from the far end. I squinted at it and tried to make out a shape from the glint, but to no avail.

"Anyone got eyes?" I asked out loud to practically nobody. The rest of the group had caught up, but was still breathless and exhausted. Never having run that far with so much weight on I was sure.

"Of course we all have eyes…we can see can't we?" piped up the trucker in our group. I almost smacked myself in the head and called him an ass, but I remembered that no one here was military or even ex-military as far as I knew, so I took a deep breath and rephrased myself,

"Ok, does anyone have a spotting scope or binoculars? Something that I can see far away shit with?" I listened to the rustle of equipment being moved about and kept my eyes locked on the place where the glint came from. Sure enough it came again, this time a little brighter. I turned back to the small group and saw one of the older guys pull out a small booklet labeled 'Birds of the Southeastern US' and a small pair of spotting binoculars. He handed them over to me with a

"I knew my hobby would come in use someday." And a small smile. I didn't make any remarks, though I know I should have.

I raised the small binoculars towards where the glint came from and saw a small hump in the outline of the stadium top. Probably someone behind a scoped rifle, watching us and waiting to see what we were going to do apparently. As if the smoking and talking hadn't given us away as uninfected.

The hump turned into the shape of a person dressed in all black and with what almost looked to be a headset on. He raised his arms and pumped them up and down, the left one going up and down 3 times, and the right one going up and down 5 times. This guy was either a contractor, or a professional soldier. That signal meant radio channels. GRMS Channel 3, Sub channel 5. I handed the radio back to the older guy and pulled out my radio; switching the channels to 3/5, I sent out a transmission,

"This is call sign Sorrow. We've come from Benning on a SAR mission after we got a distress beacon from this area. Identify yourself sniper." I released the PTT and for a few tense seconds, got nothing in return but a dead net.

"Sorrow, this is Romeo 6. We're the source of the distress beacon that you guys have picked up at Benning. The Stadium is secure from the inside, so we would have to lift you up somehow if you wanted to get in." came the reply. It was a female voice, so probably not the sniper. She sounded exhausted and somewhat relieved that we were friendlies.

The screech of the infected suddenly caught my attention away from the radio.

_Am I who I think I am?  
Am I who I think I am?  
Am I who I think I am?  
Look out my window and see its gone wrong  
Court is in session and I slam my gavel down_

"Fuck." Was all I could say to myself about the situation. It seemed that we were literally up shit creek in a chicken wire canoe and heading for deadmans falls without a paddle. The sounds got louder and closer, screeching, moaning, roaring. All primal sounds for the beasts that had suddenly gotten a fix on our location. It was unnerving to know that my life and the lives of these 10 other men were suddenly hanging in the balance. Not by my thread, but by the thread of this woman who told us she would have to drop us line to get us in the stadium.

I clicked on my PTT and said with some semblance or calmness,

"Alright Romeo 6, get us the fuck up there. Where are you dropping the line?" The reply came almost immediately. With a definitely happier tone this time,

"We can drop the rappelling ropes down straight in front of you, by the freight doors. You'll climb up to the third floor and be escorted to the field and upper levels by some of our shooters." I didn't like the sound of this, 'escort,' as she was calling it, but I had no choice other than dying at the hands of possibly a few thousand infected. I bit the bullet and replied,

"Drop the lines Romeo Six. See you when we get inside. Sorrow out." As I looked back at the men who had willingly followed me into this deathtrap, I saw a small look of fear in each of their eyes. It must have shown in my eyes as well because they grimaced, and one of them asked me,

"We're going to die here aren't we Dan?" I simply shook my head and replied,

"Not yet man. Not without a fight."

_I drink from the cup of denial  
I'm judging the world form my throne  
I drink from the cup of denial  
I'm judging the world form my throne_

I gave a quick intro to the fundamentals of rappelling, all the while having to almost shout over the noise of the screeching infected that were somehow nowhere in sight.

"This is hard work guys, if you can't make it up. I can't promise that I can get you up there. So you should probably do this, even if you think you can't. It's either make it up there quickly, or become one of them." I jerked my thumb in the direction where the screeching was coming from. The looks of horror on the men's faces said it all; they would do it, period.

I love my little pep talks.

After my little class on rappelling, we all took off at a dead sprint down the on ramp and into the main freight parking lot. Which thankfully was set about 20 feet about main street level and fenced off; the damn depot even had a sliding steel gate that I bet we could have locked. My heart almost stopped when I saw the gate was closed in front of us. I almost hit the gate when it started to open up, slowly, but fast enough for us to be able to sprint through a small gap that had opened up.

One at a time we all piled in past the gate and stopped to make sure the men behind us made it through. The slowest man was ironically the football player kid that had volunteered to come with us so he could, "Find his girlfriend." I personally believe that kind of bravado and selfishness to be stupid, but this kid had done well so far. We all took a knee because we knew the screaming mobs were most likely right behind the kid, and sadly we were right.

As he came about halfway down the on ramp a veritable mob of the infected came right behind him. As soon as they saw him running, and us just standing in the open gate way, they began to sprint full speed down the on ramp, tripping and falling over themselves. But no matter how many of them tripped and fell, more just took their place. They just trampled each other and kept coming. Their shrieks filling the air, their stench blowing down on us, and the fact of potential death fueled my next descision.

"CLOSE THE GATE DAMNIT!" I roared over the sound of the mob, my voice must have rang loud and clear because almost immediately the gate started closing. I saw the look of panic on the kids face as he put everything into his run, the look of desperation in his eyes. I just stared back with my (as a fellow Delta Force operator had called them), "Cold, pitiless killers eyes. Eyes as grey and bleak as a winter day." I simply stared at a dead man running towards me.

"What the fuck are you doing Dan!?" yelled one of the SWAT officers, "We can't just let him die!" I simply stared straight into his eyes, trying to will him to run faster, to make it here before the gate closed.

Time crawled, and I heard a pitiful scream emit from kids mouth, and something snapped in me. The gate was closed by the time the kid had reached it, and the horde was right behind him, not even a few hundred feet. I climbed up onto the top of the gate and put my hand out, grasping his in my own. I pulled with all my might and the kid simply lifted up off the ground, finally coming to rest on the concrete below me.

As I jumped down to the ground I picked the kid up by his vest and pushed him towards the 5 dangling ropes that were our lifeline at this point. The infected beat on the gate, causing it to shudder and groan under the weight of the mob. Time returned to normal as it was, my heartbeat suddenly erupted in my head as the realization came to me;

Get up the ropes. So I yelled it,

"GET UP THE ROPES ASAP!" without hesitation or question, the 10 men sprinted faster than I had ever seen a man move before towards the ropes, hook their lines up, and started rappelling. As I ran towards the ropes myself making sure to be the last man up, I heard three things at once; the gate beginning to give way, a spurt of automatic weapons fire from up above, and finally Raven Six's miniguns roaring out in staccato, tearing the mob to shreds in less than a second.

I turned back towards the ropes and saw only three of the ten men had made it up. I fired a shot into the air and roared again,

"GET UP THOSE FUCKING ROPES!" the sound of my own voice was hollow without the noise of the infected in the background, or the cacophony of automatic weapons fire. Within a few moments the other seven men were up the ropes, or three quarters of the way up, with two men to a rope. I latched myself onto a line and didn't even have time to brace myself against the support beam before I felt myself lifting off the ground and up towards the third story breezeway.

I clambered up over the side of the railing and just sat on the ground, my lets splayed out in front of me. I pulled out another cigarette quickly and noticed the stillness around me. I looked up and found a female hand held out to me. I took it and was helped up by who I presumed was Romeo 6 by the insignia on her uniform. After she helped me up she said cheerfully,

"Welcome to New Haven"


End file.
